August 29/09 10:55 am - Track Nationals Day 2: Report and Results

Posted by Editoress on 08/29/09

ay two of the Canadian National Championships was an exciting day of races, with some results too close to call. The day started with a very fast and aggressive junior men's scratch race qualifier. Team BC drove hard from the front in the first heat and kept the pace up for the whole 5 km event. In the final Jacob Schwingboth (BC) earned his new National title by attacking several times and finishing a few bike lengths in front of Boris Martin (BC), and Frederic Poisson (PQ) who had taken strong pulls on the front.

The junior women's points race was a tight competition between Allison Beveridge (AB), Krista Ruby (ON), Florence Laplante-Lamarche (ON), Jasmine Glasser (BC), and Veronique Drapeau-Zgoralski (PQ). All five of these young women attacked during the 14 km race with the second year cadet Beveridge having the faster legs and winning over Ruby and Laplante-Lamarche who had competed at the 2009 Junior World Championships in Moscow a few weeks ago.

The junior and elite men's kilo was hotly contested with 19 juniors and 12 elites up to the challenge of competing in this lung busting, leg burning event. Allan Leparskas (ON) topped the leader board with a 1:08.8, while Scott Mulder (BC) finished second and in third place was Hugo Barrette (BC).

Through the middle of the elite heats the times were all close until Jeff Bakal (AB) put the hammer down and bested the previous times by 1.5 seconds. Jamie Shankland (BC) dug deep to put in a time 0.3 seconds faster, and then Stephane Cossette (PQ) blazed around the 20 laps to finish first with a 1:08.3, half a second faster to take the gold.

Tara Whitten (AB) was paired with Laura Brown (BC) in the individual pursuit qualifier and Brown was determined not to be passed by the World Cup medalist in this event. She left it all on the line for a personal best time by 7 sec. and earning a start in the pursuit final where she was matched up against Whitten again. This time the World medalist had a clean pass to win the gold with Brown taking home silver. The bronze medal ride was a nail biter as Steph Roorda (BC) and Julia Bradley (ON) battled it out. Roorda had a faster start, but Bradley chased her down and for several laps the two were neck in neck. In the end, Bradley pulled away for the bronze medal.

The Junior Women's individual pursuit match up were just as exciting. Allison Beveridge and Krista Ruby were paired for the gold medal ride with Beveridge edging out Ruby to win. In the bronze medal ride, only 0.064 seconds separated Sarah McKenzie-Picot (ON) and Jasmine Glasser (BC) with the bronze going to the Ontario rider.

Team BC 1 beat Team Ontario for the gold in the junior team pursuit, but it was a hard fought battle as Ontario started to get caught but pulled themselves together to gain speed and stay in front of Team BC on the 200 meter track. The bronze medal ride was between Team Quebec and Team BC2 with BC claiming bronze by less than a second.

The elite final saw Team Canada 1 (Schwingboth, Defrancheschi, Lachance, MacDonald) face off against Team Canada 2 (Bell, Potma, Meyer, Sidic). The two teams have been practicing all week together and they rode like well oiled machines. They were equal on their split times throughout the race with Team Canada 1 claiming gold by 0.08 of a second.

The elite men's scratch race had Zach Bell (BC) take off early with only David Boily (PQ) able to hold his wheel. The two riders lapped the field and then Bell took off again, forcing Boily to chase hard after the gold medal position. In the end, Bell stayed away, Boily won silver, and a strong push to the finish Daniele Defranceschi rode away from the pack for bronze.

The final event of the evening was the Men's elite Kierin. Always an exciting event, the kierin saw six hungry sprinters take to the boards and sprint it out. Joseph Veloce (ON) picked up the speed with two laps to go, but Travis Smith (AB) rode around him going in to the second to last turn to take the lead with Veloce on his wheel. Third place was too close to call with half the commissaires thinking it was Stephane Cossette (PQ) and the other half picking Lawrence Leroux (PQ). After checking the photo finish it was still too close to call and a tie was declared; bronze medals were awarded to them both.